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So here we are on hUMp Day, likely one of the biggest party humps days of the year. Thanksgiving Eve. No other Wednesday evening is celebrated with more flair on a consistent basis than this Wednesday. Yes, if the 4th of July falls on a Wednesday or even a Thursday there are big firecracker celebrations, but that doesn’t happen every year.

Many bars are packed the eve of Thanksgiving filled with revelers who have come back home or have traveled to someone else’s home or who are still at their own homes but went out anyhow. Family and friends can be found together in festive celebrations this Wednesday eve. Most everyone is smiling, sharing stories, and celebrating being together. By the wee hours of Thanksgiving day, some will be found wandering, much like this blog.

I have a few frustrations with Thanksgiving, none of which diminish it from being my favorite holiday of the year. Here are three:

1) Christmas decorations being displayed BEFORE Thanksgiving.

2) Christmas songs on the radio BEFORE Thanksgiving.

3) Calling it Turkey Day.

Let’s expound on number three.

Yes, most every Thanksgiving, we have Turkey. On the same hand (or in the same mouth), most every 4th of July we have a hot dog or hamburger. And, on most every Easter, we have a slice of ham. Yet, when the fireworks are going off, we do not say, “Happy Hot Dog Day.” And when the organ plays at church we do not say, “Happy Ham Day.”

So why, on this one day of the year set aside simply for thanks, do some choose to call it turkey day? Surely the turkeys don’t celebrate it. Surely the Native American tribe, Wampanoag, who supposedly shared in that 1621 event don’t celebrate it. Their heritage was nearly obliterated from the records after befriending the Pilgrims.

It can’t even be justified as being simplified as an abbreviation. Tur-key-day. Three syllables. Thanks-giv-ing. Three syllables. OK, I can see why we don’t call it green bean casserole day. That’s six syllables Even sweet potato day is five.

The holiday is simple. One day out of 365 set aside for giving thanks. ONE DAY. Let’s celebrate it for THAT. Thanks. Thanks for what you have. Thanks for what you don’t have. Thanks for being alive. Thanks for friends and family. Thanks.

Every Thanksgiving I play this song. I don’t know why I chose this song, but I’d like to share it with you since there are no Thanksgiving Carols. Maybe you don’t read all the links the camel gives you, but this one is worth the watch:

It hasn’t been the greatest of years for me, but it’s been OK. As the Five Man Electrical Band said in 1971, “Thank you Lord for thinking of me, I’m alive and doing fine.” Woo!

Remember when only birds that flew twittered? Now some strange birds we wish would fly away twitter too. Many hide behind keystrokes to “voice” their strange bird comments that are oddly reported on the news sometimes as if they matter. A sign of the times and the social media progress (1) is the whole world of Twitter.

Radio and TV hosts constantly say, “I twittered this, I twittered that.” Wow, did you? Are you reminding us because nobody read your tweets? We ARE impressed, really we are. Tell us again your pearls of wisdom in 140 characters or less.

A reader from Alabama asked me about the symbol #. In the world of Twitter, now, it’s called a hashtag. It used to be called a number sign. Some consider it a pound sign.

When you call anywhere to get information on anything, there is not a real person that answers. You usually get a recording on a phone call, and it says, “Enter all your personal information, really, we won’t share it unless our systems are compromised, followed by the pound sign.”

What is it really? Is the mysterious # part of a larger conspiracy to eventually take over all the upper case symbols on the keyboard? (Watch out %, your day of reckoning is coming soon.) Here is my opinion from the grassy knoll.

Maybe, it’s a tic-tac-toe board?

#. Speaking of X’s and O’s, XOXO used to mean “kisses and hugs”. Just ask my daughters, I signed every card, Love, Dad, XOXO. In this fancy abbreviated world of progress, we have forgotten the XOXO. OMG. Hashtag this!

Remember when we used to actually talk to each other?

Speaking of talk and speeches, yesterday a reader from California reminded me that, November 19, 2013, was the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address (2). Now there’s a speech that still stands up today. It is ranked on a list as one of the Top Ten Speeches of all time.

Ironically, none of those Top 10 speeches have been in the last 25 years. Maybe because the “progress” of communication limits us to 140 characters or less sent via some other source than personal communication.

Big-to-do over November 12 this year. Why? Because numerically, the date was 11.12.13. A sequential date such as this will only happen one more time this century (12.13.14) , then not again for 90 years after that.

From a nation that is not renown for exceptional Math scores, a large number of Americans found the numerology of the date to be mystical enough to plan a rare Tuesday wedding. (Unless of course you live in part of the world where numerical dates start with the year then none of this matters. 13/11/12 was not a big wedding day in those countries. Lithuanian clergy still had the day off.) As John Mellencamp says, “Aw but ain’t that America for you and me …”

The local news here also ran a 5:00 news story yesterday about a baby born this morning at 9:10 11//12/13. (After that was aired, I am sure many obstetricians on the evening shift were telling expectant mothers to stop pushing for ten minutes and give the big push when the little hand is on the 9 and the big hand is on the 2.)

I thought to myself, “That’s kind of cool. A once in a lifetime date.” (Base beat, drums, Talking Heads hit it … “Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down. Letting the days go by water flowing underground ….”

Then Late Night Host, Jimmy Fallon put it all in perspective. The quote from his monologue last night was, “A lot of couples are planning on getting married today because the date is 11/12/13. Couples say they like 11/12/13 because it is a unique date that will never happen again (this century). In a related story, that’s literally how every date works.”

Proving once again this mystically numerical sequence may indeed be Much Ado Over Nothing (props to Billy Shakespeare, born 4/16/64, which by the way has happened four times since 1564.)

FOOTNOTES:

After thoroughly scouring the web for 10 minutes (or was it 11, 12 or 13 minutes I don’t recall) I could not find the origin of the phrase “Big-to-do.” However, I did learn that “The Big-To-Do” was the tenth studio album released by the country band Drive by Truckers.

This week’s cover photo is titled, “November, Where The Leaves Go To Die.”